Anthargange - Rocky trek

Well this was my first trek of its kind, a proper hill climbing....
Anthargange is a hill located in kolar (karnataka), its usually famous for the temple situated midway, but its also a trekkers hub especially for techies who come in group for rappelling during weekends....

Best way to get there is using a two wheeler or car, kolar is around 70KMs from bangalore, and once you reach there anyone will direct you to Anthargange..

Here are the pics from the trek


Planning...
Selva (My colleague) who was recently infected by a disease called trekking was itching to go on a short trek and was not finding anyone to accompany him, he casually mentioned about his desire to trek anthargange and asked if I would like to join. I have been pretty much alien to trekking till then, so I gave it some thought....
I have been watching this show called Man vs Wild and I had wanted to go on such adventures as that guy on TV (bear grylls actually)... This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to kick start that...
It was decided that we will go the following Saturday (10-Jan-2009)(Yes, this blog is a few years too late... but don't mind that), I was lucky that I said yes because that day was what made me turn a trekking freak..(well sort of atleast...) so let me say it here "Thank you selva"

Kick start ...
I had stayed overnight at selva's house and we had stuffed our backpacks with snacks and biscuit (especially Rs.3 tiger biscuit, cheap fellows) in case we got hungry during our trek....
We started in selva's bike early morning 6.30AM, fortunately selva has a proper bike (Unicorn to be precise) and not a moped which I have back home, so we zoomed to kolar from bangalore quite fast....
The bridge near KR-puram  was pretty much like a gateway to kolar....

KR-Puram bridge, Bangalore's gateway to Kolar

We had reached kolar around 8.00AM and it took some time asking the locals for a proper way to reach Anthargange, we finally got some approximate direction, and we decided to do a light breakfast... but... we were destined to trek with empty stomach as we couldn't find any proper hotel nearby the hill, we decided we will snack on our biscuits later and started towards the hill...

Anthargange hill

 We parked the bike in a near by house at the hill base, but selva was reluctant to leave his bike, I couldn't understand the reason, so I asked him why? he filled me in with these wise words ... "Ungalku theriyadhunga.. petrol yadhudthudvaanga., jagardiya irukkunum" (you don't know man! some one will steal petrol from the tank, you need to be careful) aah! the precious liquid,
well I couldn't say much to this, so he gave some instruction to the house owners to take care of his bike and what not and we were off....

Jack and jill went up the hill...
It was finally time to start and we were at the steps and I was thrilled taking those Initial steps.

Initial steps

There are proper steps which lead to the temple, selva wanted to take a more wilder route, so we took to the woods adjacent to the steps, this turned out to be very good by me, and by the time we reached the temple via this route we had had a mini adventure finding the way up, I had stumbled quite a few times by this time and selva filled me in with the reason, my shoes were the culprit, as the sole were worn off with no grip unsuitable for trekking (I made a mental note to buy a proper trekking shoes).
After the temple starts a very narrow uphill steps carved out in rocks and this seemed to be the way one needs to take, these steps lead you to a village situated in thie hill and we started the trial....

Some steps up the hill are smooth like this

Snack time...
It was quite some time since we started and our empty stomachs were acting up now...so we made a pit stop and the Rs.3 biscutis turned out a life saver, we filled our stomachs, and quenched some water and the mandatory photo session.

Pit stop for snack....

.. and mandatory photo session... (That's selva)

After a long climb we finally made it to the top of what was a small village, I was happy that I made it to the top and tired, I wanted to rest a bit and start back....
but wait....
Selva had different ideas.. he said "Yennangu unno mele poradhu irukku.." (we still need to go to the top..) I was confused, whats with this fellow I thought, I didn't see anything else to climb...
he pointed me to a smaller rocky hill nearby, apparently that is the actual peak for this hill, I desperately wanted to go back as I was tired, but after countless reasoning with him this adamant guy didn't back out...
I couldn't do much... He had the bike which will take me back so I needed to stick with him...(poor me)

Reaching the actual peak..
we started towards this hill, but we could find a proper way to enter it, we roamed up and down the field but to no avail, a farmer woman who was going near by came to our rescue,
Selva blurted "Beta" pointing towards the hill, I was confused why is he talking about sons with this woman,
the woman seemed to have understood and asked us to follow her, we followed her (selva enlightened me in with the vocablary, Beta in kannada means hill) she took us through some rock and gave us some instructions on how to reach the top and stood expectantly... it took us some time to understand, then we stumbled into our pockets to take out some loose change and place it in her palms.... she went off happliy
(I cursed the techies under my breath who seem to have corrupted these villagers with greed for loose change, I certainly didn't like it as it put a hole in my pocket...hmph!)

We had finally caught on to the trial and we reached a point what seemed to be the top to me, the cool breeze up there was refreshing, and I wanted to relax, we took some snaps here

And I thought "finally time to return"... but no... Mr.Selva had more other plans....he pointed to some rocks which were at an elevated height, he said the actual peak lies up there and we need to go up there....
I wanted to cry, random thoughts shot through my mind "Man I'm not even married yet and he wants me to die already.. does he have a death wish...? "
but having realised this fellow is not gonna back out, I had no choice but to follow....
we explored some mini caves in search of the way up and we finally found some slippery rocky path to the peak...

In search of a way up?

We finally made it to the peak and I must say it was worth all the effort, the peak is always the point of satisfaction and I realised that a hill trek is incomplete if you don't make it all the way up...
The breeze up here was cooler and we braced it... it felt like it took away all the tiring effort from out body

Point of satisfaction

more other ideas..
unfortunately there was a rock boulder on the peak which was dangerously placed, selva blurted a crazy idea again... "adukku mele pona than acutualla peak ku pona maadri.." (If we go on top of that boulder only then it means we made it to top), I gave it a look and decided, I'm no edmund hillary on a mission to scale Mt.Everest, (besides I'm not married yet to do any thing more dangerous) I said "Illae naka illae" (No means no) resolutely and I knew even selva realised it was dangerous to try climbing it.

Jack and jill went down the hill...
It was finally time to return and we started back, the climb down hill was mostly without incident, except for a village woman asking for some money which we tactically avoided (hey! no freebies ...)
We saw a group of techies who had reached the hill around afternoon they were there to do rappelling...
we ignored them and continued our way down...
We reached the kolar town by afternoon 1.00 PM had lunch and we both went back our own ways...

Nose dive hill

There is a hill near by which I usually find beckoning me for a climb whenever I travel towards chennai on NH46,
I finally found time to do it this week, turns out it is around 12KMs from Ambur this is just before a village called madanur.
Here are some snaps from the trek if you are bored to read

Start from home...
It was the usual.... my partner came to my home after fajr (that is around 6.00 AM) I had barely woken...
and after the usual lecture from my grandpa about not to go out in for trek as it was summer and you will lose face complexion and be careful during the trek and what not... we tiptoed our way out in SUPER XL TVS moped (ahem its not  a super fast bike you see), we filled up the moped tank with 0.66Litres of petrol and were rolling on towards madanur a near by village...

We usually don't plan which hill to trek before heading out and it happens on the run, after crossing the flyover near pachakuppam a hill range with 3 adjacent hills start, these hill are usually thorny with no gateway to climb to top, we had  attempted a climb in one of them sometime back but failed due as there was no much room to enter it.
It is one these hills actually the last one which has a unique shaped peak and I had wanted to climb it for sometime now for some reason I call it nosedive hill, I slowed down the moped (which was going super fast at 25KMPH) near this hill desperately looking for a opening, the speed-o-meter was reading 5KMPH and I barked a order at my partner .. "kya to bhi opening milta kya dekh?" (Check if there is any opening?)

Bless his sharp eyes he promptly replied "wahan dekh muzzu! ek barik lane jaata dekh" (Look ahead muzzu, a narrow lane is opening up there) well Muzzu is my nickname u see...

The hill we climbed. we call it nose dive hill...

Fair enough there was a small muddy lane about 2 feet wide going into the hill with thorny bushes all around. we pulled over and were contemplating to go inside or not, fortunately we saw a local village man with his lungi tied above the knees and his short clearly visible walking down the muddy lane into the hill, we hurriedly followed him, I asked him "malai mele porattuku wali irukka?" (is there a way to up the hill top?), he didn't stop but was advancing onwards, I got a feeling he might not oblige to the question, but as if he was used to the question he answered all the things we need to know while walking and it was really heplful.

Narrow lane leading from highway to the hill base..

Fortunately the state government had made a narrow mud trial from the base to till top of the hill (Apparently there is a token temple on the top). This trial was the only way to climb the hill as all around the hill the only thing you could find was thorny bushes, even this trial was not a safe one as it was carved out between these flesh in a thorn(y) bushes and our steps for most of the part up and down the hill had be taken with a lot of care and maneuver to avoid getting pricked or rashes which we did (well atleast for most part)

Midway...

Buddy resting midway

Halfway we found a resting spot which was good for resting as well as taking in a beautiful view of the scene below, I did my usual "stand on rock and looking at the peak" pose for a photograph and we both took a breather.

Stand on rock and look at peak!

No water policy gets our @r$&...
Since it was mid April (Summer) we were feeling the heat quiet early in the morning, we looked at each other we were already tired and sweaty by then,
Well you could say "Whats the big deal, you should have sipped a bottle of water or juice rested a bit and get a move on already" after all thats what all trekkers do right?
Unfortunately thats not so in our care, we both have a policy for our treks no water no refreshments, go bare hand and survive the wild for 4 hours without any external support, and it usually makes us suffer but this being summer it was making us suffer a lot more, we were feeling our dry lungs which had only seen a glass of water since we woke up and nothing else.... curses!

Power Ups...
We started our way up again and our pace was a little slow, each time I was clenching my fist and trying to "power up" to get the extra strength for me to carry on...
If you are wondering what this power up thing is, then I will explain it..
Its a thing which super heroes do in Animes and video games which makes their strength double or triple or fourble (ahem! Quadraple that is).....

I wanted to power up like this... alas! I'm human after all

Having realised that power ups are beyond me, I did a reality check, my partner was a little ahead by now and I called him "Mujju! wapas jaange ki...?" (Mujju shall we go back? Mujju is my partners nickname) this is usually the case in our trips when we tire out and one of us contemplate returning halfway.. this time it was my turn.My partner put up a brave front and asked me to rest up a bit so that we can start again.
Well I did this complaning 3 to 4 times before we finally reached the top.

On Top...
we finally made it to the peak and somehow I made it first, there was a layer of sunburned black grasses which was apparently effects of overdoing the sun-tan, (poor fellows)
I did my usual stand on top and look below pose for a snap and we explored the top a bit.

On top

The back side of the hill was a jungle unsuitable for exploring but there was a lone tree which stood majestically with a barren look, fresh fruit were seeping out of it (looked like mangoes to me...)
we appreciated it a bit and made our way back

Barren tree which caught out attention, this was facing the back side of the hill

Heading back...
After we came down, we rested a bit and started our way back, we wanted some refreshments badly after our dry trek and fortunately we found a tender coconut guy on our way back, we stopped and quenched our thirst before going back home...

We sipped to our hearts content...